BANGALORE:  A senior scientist, TN Suresh Kumar working with Indian Space Research Organization, is the first Indian to visit the stratosphere, also called the “edge of space” which is the second layer of the earth’s atmosphere, reports Delhi daily news.

The stratosphere is just above the troposphere, and below the mesosphere. This layer is stratified in temperature, with warmer layers higher up and cooler layers farther down.

He made it to an altitude of 17,100 meters on August 15, 2014 in a MIG-29 from Sokol Airbase near Nizhny Novgorod in Russia, paying a hefty fee of around 15 lakh from his savings.

Kumar said "It was a 48 minute flight, but we were at the edge of space only for one minute. It was in late 1985, I was one of the astronauts short-listed to go to space but, unfortunately the programme was dropped due to explosion of the space shuttle, Challenger in February 1986. This was a great disappointment for me. But it set a new goal for me to touch all the continents of the globe."

He added "Besides me there was a pilot on the flight. I always wanted to take the Indian flag to space and so I deliberately undertook the journey on August 15. I also took my mother's photo with me. Though the journey was very expensive, nothing can be compared to the thrill that I got. After the space journey, I went on a trans-Siberain tour and returned three days back."

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